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When Arians left the Indianapolis Colts after serving as their offensive coordinator and interim head coach to become the Arizona Cardinals’ head coach, taking James Bettcher with him as the outside linebackers coach was one of his first moves.

When Todd Bowles got the head coaching job for the New York Jets, the then-36-year-old Bettcher was immediately made the Cardinals’ defensive coordinator — a move that worked out well since Arizona had a top 10 defense in the league over the last three seasons under Bettcher’s direction.

When Arians retired at the conclusion of the 2017 season, he recommended that the Cardinals promote Bettcher to head coach, but they instead went with Steve Wilks. Now, the 39-year-old Bettcher is the New York Giants’ defensive coordinator under Pat Shurmur and looking to take a Giants defense that ranked 27th in the NFL last year and turn them around.

Arians said that Bettcher is one of the better young coordinators out there in the league right now.

“I thought he was more than ready to be a head coach and he’s one of the best young coordinators in the league. His statistics speak for themselves,” Arians told NJ Advanced Media. “But what he did with out defense the second half of our season was amazing, especially when we were out of the playoffs and we just got better and better. Credit to him that our guys kept playing so hard for him.”

Before Bettcher had become available to hire, the feeling was that Jack Del Rio was expected to become the next Giants defensive coordinator. But once Wilks was hired in Arizona and made Al Holcomb his defensive coordinator, Bettcher became one of the more attractive assistant coaches on the market and a must hire.

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Bettcher ultimately ended up choosing the Giants’ defensive coordinator job over the Tennessee Titans’ and if he can get the Giants defense back to where they were in the 2016 season, Bettcher may shoot straight to the top of the list for must-hire coaches next year.

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